In the late winter months of 1801, a man named Lockwood rents a manor house called Thrushcross Grange in the isolated moor country of England. Here, he meets his dour landlord, Heathcliff, a wealthy man who lives in the ancient manor of Wuthering Heights, four miles away from the Grange, but otherwise isolated in the moors. In this wild, stormy countryside, Lockwood asks his housekeeper, Nelly Dean, to tell him the story of Heathcliff and the strange denizens of Wuthering Heights. Nelly consents, and Lockwood writes down his recollections of her tale in his diary; those written recollections form the great majority of Wuthering Heights.When Nelly was a young girl, she was a servant at Wuthering Heights to Mr. Earnshaw and his family. One day, Mr. Earnshaw goes to Liverpool, and returns home with an orphan boy whom he will raise with his own children. At first, the Earnshaw children--an older boy named Hindley and his young sister Catherine--detest the dark-skinned Heathcliff. Catherine quickly grows to love him, and the two are soon inseparable. They spend their days playing on the moors. After his wife's death, Mr. Earnshaw grows to prefer Heathcliff to his own son, and when Hindley continues his cruelty to Heathcliff, Mr. Earnshaw sends Hindley away to college, keeping Heathcliff nearby.Three years later, Mr. Earnshaw dies, and Hindley inherits Wuthering Heights. He returns with a wife, Frances, and immediately seeks revenge on Heathcliff: the once orphan and now spoiled boy is now to be treated as a common laborer, and forced to work in the fields. Heathcliff continues his close relationship with Catherine, however. One night they wander to Thrushcross Grange, hoping to tease the cowardly, snobbish Linton children, Edgar and Isabella, who live there. Catherine is bitten by a dog, and is forced to stay at the Grange to recuperate for five weeks, during which time Mrs. Linton works to make her a proper young lady. When she returns, s...
